Ellen Burstyn, you were robbed.
Some of the best examples of the discs high level of detail and bright coloring are in the clothing of the main character. She wears some loud colors and patterns. If it wasn´t for the wardrobe selections, then "Erin Brokovich" would be a dull-looking film. Offices, cars, trailer parks and other uninteresting locations are the primary sets in the film. The transfer holds up nicely regardless of what Julia Roberts is wearing and the HD-DVD shows its strength over the DVD release with each outfit change. Going back to technical details, the black levels are deep and whites often feel overblown, but are clean. There are moments of film grain contained in the film, but this is a trademark of Soderbergh. The disc does suffer some from edge enhancement and white borders crop up a few times in the film. The source materials are generally clean and although I did see a little dirt, this disc wasn´t too bad. The few flaws do keep this from being a perfect catalog title, but it is still pretty strong.
Sound:
A singular Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtrack is provided in the film´s native English language. "Erin Brokovich" is a talky film that doesn´t have many sound effects to spring life into the multi-channel mix. Although the soundtrack is unimpressive in its elements, it is technically sound. The Thomas Newman score sounds warm and is effective throughout the film. The Sheryl Crowe musical numbers and other songs sound very nice as well. Music moves to the rears, but aside from that, the rear surrounds are mostly kept silent. The .1 LFE channel gets the day off with "Erin Brokovich." There simply isn´t anything contained in the film to make use of the soundtrack. Erin doesn´t open her briefcase with a strong bass note to build suspense; it just doesn´t need to happen. This is a film that almost completely relies on dialogue for its soundtrack. If it weren´t for the sparse music and occasional car motor, there would only be dialogue. The sound shows no flaws or problems with its mastering. It just doesn´t have any oomph that is allotted to it by its sound design.
Extras:
"Erin Brokovich" finds itself loaded with the same features that were found on the original DVD release from a handful of years ago. The Spotlight on Location (15:12) is the promotional made-for-cable feature that mixes making-of-footage and promotional aspects to help market the film. With the real Erin Brokovich and others involved in both the making of the film and the actual events depicted by the film, this is an above average "Spotlight," but it still isn´t as deep and meaningful as non-promotional making of features. The feature simply titled Erin Brokovich (3:59) is from footage shot for the "Spotlight" feature, but features Erin Brokovich detailing her thoughts on the water contamination case. This was very nice footage and would have made the "Spotlight on Location" feature a far nicer supplement had this been left with that footage. Too bad it wasn´t longer. The Theatrical Trailer expands upon the promotional bits included.
The finest value added content on the HD-DVD platter was the lengthy collection of Deleted Scenes (30:05) that are included with optional commentary by Director Steven Soderbergh. This was easily the best supplement on the disc and an above average offering of deleted scenes. Soderbergh´s commentary was a nice touch and gave nice details on why much of this footage was removed. Some of these scenes should have been left in the film. They gave more depth on the Erin Brokovich character and further details on her investigations. With an already long running length of 132 minutes, I can understand the need to shorten a film and I´m not one to beg for more Julia Roberts, but I did like some of this footage. Soderbergh points out more information on the making of the film and about the character and the commentary on this footage almost serves as a separate supplement.
Closing Thoughts:
I like "Erin Brokovich" as a film. Julia Roberts does a perfectly fine job as the main character, although I will always stand behind my belief that she did not deserve the Oscar for her performance. She is good, but far from great. I could have seen a number of actresses bring more emotion and more spunk to this role. Co-stars Albert Finney and Aaron Eckhart are both very good and the multitude of extras that portray the townsfolk are quite believable. Steven Soderbergh is a fine director and he crafted a very nice portrayal of the real-life story. I always enjoy stories that are firmly rooted in reality and this is a true-life story that is worth watching. I´ll never put "Erin Brokovich" on any of my Best Of lists. It isn´t even a film that I would outright recommend to anybody. However, if anybody asks, I´ll gladly tell them it is a good film and not a bad way to pass an evening. I´ll probably find a soap box and talk about Julia Roberts, but that is my prerogative as well. The HD-DVD features a rather nice looking transfer that does the best it can with Steven Soderbergh´s style choices. The sound design is bland and results in a bland sounding title. The supplements include over a half an hour of deleted scenes with nice Soderbergh commentary. This title could have used more supplements, but isn´t a bad deal on HD-DVD.
Sound:
A singular Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtrack is provided in the film´s native English language. "Erin Brokovich" is a talky film that doesn´t have many sound effects to spring life into the multi-channel mix. Although the soundtrack is unimpressive in its elements, it is technically sound. The Thomas Newman score sounds warm and is effective throughout the film. The Sheryl Crowe musical numbers and other songs sound very nice as well. Music moves to the rears, but aside from that, the rear surrounds are mostly kept silent. The .1 LFE channel gets the day off with "Erin Brokovich." There simply isn´t anything contained in the film to make use of the soundtrack. Erin doesn´t open her briefcase with a strong bass note to build suspense; it just doesn´t need to happen. This is a film that almost completely relies on dialogue for its soundtrack. If it weren´t for the sparse music and occasional car motor, there would only be dialogue. The sound shows no flaws or problems with its mastering. It just doesn´t have any oomph that is allotted to it by its sound design.
Extras:
"Erin Brokovich" finds itself loaded with the same features that were found on the original DVD release from a handful of years ago. The Spotlight on Location (15:12) is the promotional made-for-cable feature that mixes making-of-footage and promotional aspects to help market the film. With the real Erin Brokovich and others involved in both the making of the film and the actual events depicted by the film, this is an above average "Spotlight," but it still isn´t as deep and meaningful as non-promotional making of features. The feature simply titled Erin Brokovich (3:59) is from footage shot for the "Spotlight" feature, but features Erin Brokovich detailing her thoughts on the water contamination case. This was very nice footage and would have made the "Spotlight on Location" feature a far nicer supplement had this been left with that footage. Too bad it wasn´t longer. The Theatrical Trailer expands upon the promotional bits included.
The finest value added content on the HD-DVD platter was the lengthy collection of Deleted Scenes (30:05) that are included with optional commentary by Director Steven Soderbergh. This was easily the best supplement on the disc and an above average offering of deleted scenes. Soderbergh´s commentary was a nice touch and gave nice details on why much of this footage was removed. Some of these scenes should have been left in the film. They gave more depth on the Erin Brokovich character and further details on her investigations. With an already long running length of 132 minutes, I can understand the need to shorten a film and I´m not one to beg for more Julia Roberts, but I did like some of this footage. Soderbergh points out more information on the making of the film and about the character and the commentary on this footage almost serves as a separate supplement.
Closing Thoughts:
I like "Erin Brokovich" as a film. Julia Roberts does a perfectly fine job as the main character, although I will always stand behind my belief that she did not deserve the Oscar for her performance. She is good, but far from great. I could have seen a number of actresses bring more emotion and more spunk to this role. Co-stars Albert Finney and Aaron Eckhart are both very good and the multitude of extras that portray the townsfolk are quite believable. Steven Soderbergh is a fine director and he crafted a very nice portrayal of the real-life story. I always enjoy stories that are firmly rooted in reality and this is a true-life story that is worth watching. I´ll never put "Erin Brokovich" on any of my Best Of lists. It isn´t even a film that I would outright recommend to anybody. However, if anybody asks, I´ll gladly tell them it is a good film and not a bad way to pass an evening. I´ll probably find a soap box and talk about Julia Roberts, but that is my prerogative as well. The HD-DVD features a rather nice looking transfer that does the best it can with Steven Soderbergh´s style choices. The sound design is bland and results in a bland sounding title. The supplements include over a half an hour of deleted scenes with nice Soderbergh commentary. This title could have used more supplements, but isn´t a bad deal on HD-DVD.
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[release]21369[/release]